But World Enough and Time
by samchandler1986
Summary: Of all the diners, in all the towns, in all the Universe, he walks into hers...
1. World Enough and Time

Fingers trace formica countertops, finding reflections of neon from the street outside. Whiskey by her hand; melting rocks. She picks up the glass and swirls the contents reflectively. Should be moving on soon. No sense in lingering after a painful goodbye. There's a whole Universe to save. It's been a while since she's had to do it singlehandedly. Probably could do with the practice.

She takes a sip, closing her eyes to savour the spreading warmth.

 _Jeannie's earnest face seems etched into her eyelids._

 _"_ _What will you do now, Doctor?"_

 _"_ _Same as ever. I'll keep on going; the long way round."_

 _"_ _I'll miss you."_

 _"_ _Nah. You're right. Good stories have a happy ending, and you've found yours here. Now go! Go, and hold onto it. Hold it tight."_

 _"_ _I will do Doctor. Oh, I will do-"_

Her reverie is interrupted by the jangle of the TARDIS door. She frowns, not turning her head. What can the Old Man be up to? It's not like him to let strangers in against her wishes. "Sign says we're closed."

"Oh, I never pay attention to signs like that. Closed, No Entry, Danger. I tend to view them more as advertisements."

She stopped bothering with breathing centuries ago, but old habits die hard. She cannot help the sharp intake of air at the sound of _that_ voice. She spins slowly on her stool to see him standing in her doorway. He's even wearing the velvet coat.

She smiles. "You like a bit of danger?"

He frowns, mouth a thin line. "No, what I like are _answers_. Why is it closed?" He steps inside, door closing behind as he continues: "Why is no one allowed in, what are they hiding? What kind of danger?"

"We're closed because I say so. This is my place. My rules. Does that answer your question?"

He shakes his head, fingers drumming on the top of her juke box. "No, because that's not the right question. The question _I_ want answering is how a 1950s Earth-themed diner came to be on the seventh moon of Athens about three thousand years after Elvis died. And more importantly, how it came to be here today when it wasn't here yesterday."

"Hmm." She purses her lips. "That's quite a question."

 _God_ , she's missed that shark's smile; lip curling at her challenge. "Care to answer?"

She folds her arms, shrugs. "History nerd."

He taps the glass front of the music player with one long forefinger. "With a jukebox full of these anachronisms? I don't think so."

"You like Earth music?"

He nods.

"Pick a number then." She stands, crossing to him. If she had a heart to beat it would surely be racing. "Go on. A good one."

He gives her a hard look. "Twelve."

She brushes past him, punches in the code that will make the box play. The drums start first, then that opening riff. For a second she can taste tank diesel and hot metal in the air; his presence the mnemonic that takes her back long, long ago. Raising an always immaculate eyebrow, she turns to him. "Good choice, Doctor. Flattering."

"Who are you?" he says, almost a growl.

"Who do you think I am?" she demurs.

He licks his lips, terribly confused. "Are we flirting? Is this-? This _is_ flirting, isn't it?"

"Are you so out of practice?"

He puts his hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay, I came in here because _this_ -" he points to the nostalgic piece of Americana all around them "- _this_ is a TARDIS with a malfunctioning chameleon circuit. I thought maybe I was having some sort of mid-life crisis and the diner desktop and school-teacher vibe was a terrible error of taste. But _this-_ "

"Error of _taste_?" she finds herself exclaiming. "Doctor-!"

"No, shut up. Just-just shut up. I can _feel_ what's happening." He raises a finger to his temple. "I know when I walk out of the door I'm going to forget, like I always do when I meet myself. Look, what you get up to in the privacy of your own regeneration is… well, it's not fine, this kind of narcissism really isn't _fine_ -"

She reaches up and puts her hand over his still protesting mouth. "Doctor. I'm _not_ you from the future. Calm down." She lets go when his mouth stills under her palm.

"But outside, when I asked, they said-"

She screws up her face, embarrassed in spite of herself. "Okay, _yes_ , I do sometimes… borrow the title. But you know what it's like! Wrong name in the wrong place, you can change an entire causal nexus-" She stutters to a halt as those long fingers suddenly wrap around her wrist, his face no longer confused.

"You don't have a pulse," he says, fingertips pressed against where her radial artery should beat.

"No."

"And you only breathe when you're talking, when you're thinking about it."

"Yes."

His mouth quirks, twitching up at the corner; a puzzle solved. "Clara?" he breathes.

"Clara," she nods, relieved he remembers, because half the time she doesn't and it's always embarrassing to have to go and check.

"How long has it been?" he says, for want of something better, hands flapping. "How've you… how've you been?"

"Oh, shut up," she says, and kisses him.

He tastes exactly as she remembers, the way he does in her dreams when she occasionally chooses to sleep. His mouth moves under hers, reciprocating, eager-

She breaks the kiss. "But you don't remember me," she says, her voice thick. "Why would you-?"

"There's a hole," he says, uncurling the fist that clutches his velvet lapel, so her fingers lie flat across one beating heart. "And I can feel when it's been filled."

She shakes her head, smiling now. "You were never this romantic, Doctor. What have you been up to?"

His thumb traces her cheek, fingers tangling in her hair. A chaste kiss, pressed against her lips before he asks the question. "How long have you got?"

"Oh, you know. World enough, and time."


	2. Sun Stand Still

He opens his eyes; his expression makes her smile. A second of dim awareness before the Doctor fully returns. It's like watching a monitor blink into life; like a slow explosion.

"Hello," she says.

A quick look around; left, right, taking in the understated elegance of her bedroom. "How long was I gone?" he asks. Not asleep, but _gone_. She feels much the same, these days. Sleep is a waste. But still, for him, an occasional need.

"About forty-five minutes."

"Oh. Ok." He grins wickedly, and she feels the trill of something like adrenalin despite her frozen veins. "Shall we continue?"

She sits up further, lets the cover slide, amused at the flicker in his attention the exposure causes. "How long d'you think we've been going?"

"Seventy-two hours, fifty-eight minutes and six seconds." He considers this statement for a moment. "Minus the forty-three minutes and eight seconds I was asleep."

She shakes her head. "Time Lords."

"I know, we're annoying." She lets him pull her close again, gentle and tender, then shrieks in surprise as he flips them over. Her unresisting arms are now pinned against the pillow; his smile a sin. "But let's be honest," he continues, lips dipping to her throat, "there are some advantages too."

* * *

"We've done this before, haven't we?"

It is later. Closer to the inevitable goodbye.

"Lots of times-"

"Shut up." A kiss in the dark. "I meant before this."

She draws back slightly, to better see his expression. "I have," she says softly, after a time. "I think for you: no. This is the first time you've found me."

Eyelashes flutter; a blink; two. Processing. Her fingers move across his back, unthinking, waiting for him to return. "Good," he says eventually. The corner of his mouth quirks again. "Is it always like this?"

A chuckle bubbles up, like a relic from the distant past. He makes her feel young and foolish again, every time. "Always. Although sometimes we do go outside. Save planets. You know, in between."

"I look forward to it," he says, and she can see the truth in his expression.

"You should."

A sigh. "Clara-"

"No. Shut up. Don't say it."

"Clara." The way he says her name makes it belong to her again. There's not many people left in the Universe that can do that. Me, perhaps, wherever she's adventuring at the moment. And always him.

It is her turn to sigh. "Go on, then. If you have to."

"I'm sorry."

"Mm-hm. For what? There's nothing you need to apologise fo-"

"I'm sorry that I don't remember."

There it is, that catch in her chest. She's often wondered; is it memory? Does her brain remember the feeling of rushing blood and hormones and simulate the response? Or were they never biological things in the first place? That rush of lust, the sickness of fear. The weight of sadness.

"I know."

She wishes he'd just be quiet, let it be. Knows nonetheless in her stopped heart: there are some things that must be said. Without the words what has passed between them is nothing more than a giddy fuck. He's many things to her, the Doctor, but never that.

Or at least, never _just_ that.

"I can feel it," he continues, voice tight, "under the surface of my skin. When we touch…" He gasps slightly as she slides both hands up, across his chest, tracing every rib. Swallows hard. "I can feel the edges of something great and terrible. I can taste it when we kiss. But I can't _remember_."

He's apologising, she realises, in case this means more to her than it does to him. "It's ok," she says, marvelling at the tears that still prick her eyes. She wonders, how many centuries still to go? _How many seconds in eternity?_ "Because you will."

It's his turn to draw back, pressing his head into her pillows to better see her face. "What?"

"It's a neuro-block, Doctor. Not a wipe. Not a reset."

"But if I remember…" He frowns, not sure what the consequences will be, clearly still aware they will be catastrophic.

"Time, Doctor. Enough time will bring down any wall, tear apart any barrier. But time also _heals_. Time offers perspective. One day, you're going to have travelled far enough and lived and loved and lost enough to remember me. Remember us. One day you're going to remember what I said in the Cloisters. And on the day you _do_ , well, we've made a promise."

"We have?"

"Yes. You and Me and, well… me as well. Clara-me. The three of us. When you can remember, it's time to go home."

She can feel his pulse jump through her chest, so close are they entwined. Not for the first time it strikes her as ironic, that double-time beat. Her heart is still, but that's ok, because _he's_ carrying a spare. Beat after beat, counting down to zero. And when he gets there, in that time between one double heartbeat and his last, _that's_ when she's going back to face the bloody bird.

Together. One last time.

"Clara," he breathes, his own eyes wet. "I can see why I miss you."

* * *

They eat breakfast in the diner front of her TARDIS.

"Thank you," he says, and she knows he doesn't mean just for the scrambled eggs and bacon.

"It was my pleasure," she returns solemnly. She coughs. "Several times."

His grin can only be described as devilish. "Yes, well. You'll have to see if I can beat my record next time."

"Oh," she replies, her own wicked smile cracking, "believe me. You do."

He is silent, smug for a few seconds. Then, inevitably, the next thought flutters into his consciousness and escapes out of his mouth. She understands that, these days. When almost everyone else is so fleeting, it's silly not to share. Curiosity is too precious a thing to waste.

"Do they arrange it; do you think?"

"Do who?"

"The TARDISes. I wasn't planning on landing in Athens. I asked mine to take me to Neptune, a billion years from now."

She considers the proposition. "Yes," she says, eventually. "You know, I think they might." He always appears when she's sad, when she's alone; when she might consider breaking the rules she can never forget. The unspooling centuries take almost everything else, but not those.

 _Run like hell. Laugh always. Never cruel or cowardly. And if you are, make amends._

 _And no pears_.

She always feels it's a shame, that last part. She used to like pears.

He shrugs on his velvet coat as she loads their plates into the dishwasher. They never seem to require _unloading_ , appearing pristine under the diner counter. One of the many perks of TARDIS life, she assumes.

"You're looking for a new companion," he says shrewdly, as he pulls the jacket straight.

She doesn't ask how he knows. "Yes."

He runs his tongue over his teeth. "You might want to take a trip to Fingus Colony, seventy-second century, third oscillation. A Thursday afternoon, sometime in summer."

"Oh?"

"I owe someone there a favour. And one Doctor is as good as any other."

She walks him to her door, one last, lingering kiss on the threshold. "Goodbye, Clara," he says, soft and sad. He won't remember, when he turns his back, any of this at all. Not until the next time.

She smiles, seeing the new purpose, new adventures, new _future_ unfolding out in front of both of them.

"I'll be seeing you," she says.


End file.
